Miles Per Ounce?

[Lazy JW]

I was perusing a story about a gentleman who rode a Whizzer moped cross-country;

http://www.whizzermotorbike.com/glenallen.htm

At the end of the article it was mentioned that he changed the oil every 200 miles using Amsoil. What a wastefully short OCI, methinks. Then it dawned on me that the sump is only 8 ounces, so I did some quick math. 200 miles on 8 ounces = 25 miles per ounce of oil. Hmmmm. Thinking back to my VW days, I always changed the 2.5 quart oil sump at 2000 miles. 2000 miles on 80 ounces = 25 miles per ounce. Hmmmm.

The typical 5 quart sump at 3000 mile OCI works out to only 18.75 miles per ounce. Reckon maybe the 200 mile OCI on the Whizzer wasn't so extravagant after all. A 5 qt sump needs a 4000 mile OCI just to get up to the "wastefully short" miles per ounce used on the Whizzer cross-country trip.

This is probably not a valid means of determining proper OCI but I thought it was interesting.
Joe

 

[paul246]

The sump on my wife's Honda powered bike is only 3.4oz, I change the oil every week during riding season..it gets Redline oil.

 

[TallPaul]

Wow, sounds like two cycle engines may be as efficient with oil as four cycle engines.

When I saw the title, I figured it would be an oil consumption thread (I get 40 miles per ounce in consumption on the Aerostar).

 

[Reishi]

Paul, did you build that ride yourself? If so, or even if not, could you please point me in the direction for good instructions on how to build one?

That is really awesome

 

[paul246]

I "borrowed" the engine from our mini-tiller, its a Honda GX-31. The rest of the gear came from Golden Eagle in the U.S., I ordered the do-it-yourself kit. The bike we already had, of course.

I've since bought another GX-31 on Ebay and put it on the tiller.

The powered bicycle setup works very well, we have the low gear on it so that it will climb hills more readily but it will still do about 30mph (unassisted) on a level stretch with no wind.

You can check out their site at http://www.bikeengines.com/

 

[Titan]

Nice Weimaraner. I love them. I'm on my second...great dogs if you train them to behave, otherwise, they are hard-headed muscles!

By the way, I can pedal my bike at 30 mph unassisted on a level stretch with no wind...but, only for a few miles. Best I've done for 10 miles with no wind was 25.7 mph. Some of the guys can average over 30 mph for 10 miles on this same course. Maybe I should switch to AmSoil instead of Olive Oil on my pasta....

 

[qwertydude]

Whizzer's are four stroke. But if you have a moped and premix at 1% oil using newer synthetic oils like Motul's racing 2-stroke oil you'd use approximately about 1.28 ounces per 100 miles=78.125 miles per ounce of oil. The bikes get about 100 mpg gasoline. But to be safe I'd go with a 2% premix which drastically halves your oil efficiency to 39.0625 miles per ounce of oil. Which is about as much oil consumption as I got with my saturn when it consumed oil. This is surprisingly thought provoking because if you could rig a machine that could burn off oil cleanly in the engine you could theoretically never have to change your oil, just keep topping off like the moped guys.